Demand for on-street parking spaces in today's modern cities often exceeds supply, which necessitates rationing of the parking resource by implementation of time restrictions. Parking time restrictions typically vary according to the competing needs and demands of a given area. Time restricted public parking spaces may require the payment of a fee or be free of charge. Parking meters or similar devices may be installed to collect fees. In any case, time limits are applied to parking spaces to ensure equitable sharing of access to a limited public resource to promote the interests of the community.
Enforcement of time restrictions in public parking spaces is a central element of any effective parking management program. Effective parking management requires regular and consistent enforcement. However, existing methods for identifying vehicles that have exceeded a parking space's time limit are inefficient. For example, a traditional method of detecting vehicles that have exceeded a parking space's time limit is to manually place a chalk mark on a tyre of each of the vehicles parked in a specific zone and then return at an appropriate time to check if any of the vehicles with “chalked” tyres are still parked. Some of the disadvantages associated with this method are:                each parking space must be visited at least twice (usually on foot),        the two visits must be timed to match the time restriction plus any grace period allowed by the enforcement authority,        parking spaces within the same general area that have different time limits (e.g., 1-hour & 2-hour) must be enforced separately, and        The system can be defeated simply by either by rubbing off the chalk mark or moving a vehicle to a different parking space after a parking officer has “chalked” tyres of cars in a particular area.        
A need thus exists for a method, an apparatus and a system that overcomes or at least ameliorates one or more of the foregoing disadvantages.